


Lift Your Eyes From The Ground

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A-Support (Fire Emblem), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Falling In Love, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, First Kiss, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), WHERE IS IT I DEMAND IT, jk they don't have one but, overuse of the word smile, you see that? that's growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: Maybe the polite thing to do would have been to ask Marianne how she'd been. How the last five years had treated her, because Saints knew Sylvain hadn't found many reasons to smile during the last five days, much less five years.But Sylvain didn't want to. Didn't care. Didn't want anything but the familiar, nothing but the hazy feel that maybe, someday, some time ago, things had been normal enough for him to speak charming distractions and have no one question his questions.What was not familiar was this girl he remembered from school becoming a woman with such confidence.(Written for the Sylvain-centric zine,Sincerity)
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	Lift Your Eyes From The Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Being part of the _Sincerity_ zine gave me the opportunity to promote my SylMari agenda--where is my A Support, damn it?!?! 
> 
> You can pick up the whopping 180+ PDF and its HUGE quantity of beautiful art and prose [here on gumroad!](https://gumroad.com/l/XOSXa) I believe it's free now, but it _was_ pay what you want, with all proceeds of like, 1000 dollars going towards charity (you can see more info at their Twitter account, [@sylvainzine](https://twitter.com/sylvainzine))!

"Sylvain!"

He so rarely wanted to check over his shoulder when someone called his name after his retreating back like that, so Sylvain couldn't explain why he did this time. But he did want to, and he did check, and his hollow smile couldn't quite catch up enough with his genuine joy to see Marianne von Edmund beaming— beaming! —at him in the marketplace.

"If it isn't the prettiest heiress in the Alliance," Sylvain drawled, unable to contain himself. "Five years've only added to your beauty, huh?"

They really had. Crimson rushed to Marianne's face, no sign of the sallowness from their school days. Artfully-arranged curls framed the sweet roundness to her cheeks. She looked healthy. Confident. Happy.

 _Happy_.

"Hello, Sylvain," Marianne said with hardly a stammer. "I thought that was you. Ah...you look very well, too."

Sylvain quirked his lips. "Looks can be deceiving," he said to her truer smile. Not giving her time to puzzle out his meaning, he added, "Speaking of good looks, you've been practicing, haven't you?"

Marianne furrowed her brow. Had her eyes always been so soulful? Dark, borderline sensual, eyelashes kissing her skin each time she blinked—"Practicing? What do you mean?"

"Smiling. Last I saw you—" _the world had gone to hell_ , "—you said you were going to go practice your smile. And would you look at that, but it's sure paid off!"

Maybe the polite thing to do would have been to ask her how she'd been. How the last five years had treated her, because Saints knew Sylvain hadn't found many reasons to smile during the last five days, much less five years. The only good news had been of the Professor's return and rise to power, but even that excitement had been dampened by Dimitri's fall from grace.

But Sylvain didn't want to. Didn't care. Didn't want anything but the familiar, nothing but the hazy feel that maybe, someday, some time ago, things had been normal enough for him to speak charming distractions and have no one question his questions.

And sure enough, Marianne went along with it. "Thank you," she said, twisting her fingers against her chest. Sylvain tried not to stare at it. "Would you like to...you said we could...Shall we get some tea? In town?" she blurted out, and the suddenness of the request, the offer almost sent Sylvain reeling. "We can...talk."

"Sure," Sylvain's voice supplied while his brain was otherwise occupied in failing to function.

Familiar. Familiar words, responses, actions.

What was not familiar was this girl he remembered from school becoming a woman with such confidence.

A woman with such a smile.

And Sylvain grew as entranced, as enchanted as the ensnared heroes of his flirtatious fairytales.

Not just by her body, modest blue gowns failing to hide the graceful curves of her waist and neck.

Nor by her face, its soft features easy to flush through the easy flow of teatime conversation topics.

Nor by her _smile_ , that beautiful, glowing thing she bestowed on him frequently enough it hardly seemed practiced, but rarely enough for him to crave it.

Her expressions alone, Sylvain couldn't help but think, were so much more honest than his.

Where Sylvain would smirk, Marianne would blush. Where he would smile, she would laugh. Where he would laugh, she would frown—

Marianne would frown. Would express her hurt. Would speak her mind, cautious and firm in her reprimands. Would tell him—

"Sylvain, you...should be more careful. You need to protect yourself, too. I'm not...worth your pain."

It wasn't just Marianne's body that had changed.

Not just her relieved, exhausted smile when Sylvain gasped back into consciousness, his blood matting his hair from a head wound he'd never remember.

Not just her hips swaying with the unwitting sensuality born of months' worth of dancer training, now guiding her out of a bandit's axe swing and redirecting the wind fluttering her robes into a sharp, lethal strike.

Not just her muscles flexing under the strain of a parried Imperial lance against her sword, shoving it aside and sinking the blade into the smallest gaps of blood-red armor.

After five years, Marianne's strength and confidence had become as honest and heartfelt as Sylvain's were not. 

So why, when the Professor had informed him Marianne had scouted ahead to take out a Wandering Beast who shared a Crest Sylvain hadn't realized she possessed…

Why did Sylvain doubt all that strength and confidence? Why did he make sure he was the first to charge through the fog, his reckless assault lit only by the flickering fires of his allies' distant torches and the dark unholy glow of his Lance of Ruin?

Ichor splashed against his armor, poison painting the steel violet. “Marianne!”

Silence. No, not silence: chaos, the sounds of battle, all cacophonous cries better than silence. Silence meant defeat. Silence meant death.

“Open wide!” Sylvain shouted as a corrupted wolf, teeth dripping venom, grinned at him from the shadows. He slammed the tip of his lance into that awful leer, ensuring the creature’s death accompanied his falsely-joyful whoop.

The more he said, screamed, laughed, slashed…

The less silence there was to be heard.

Would Marianne have heard the fear in his battle cries, were she close enough to listen?

“I’m gonna need you to move!”

A demonic beast flared into molten bone. Sylvain yanked his lance out of its heart and felt the fog roll in deeper.

“Keep away from me!”

 _That voice_.

A ghost, Marianne had called herself once. Ashe had, too. But no. Right now, Marianne was very much alive.

Sylvain spun around, slashing another creature with the heavy weight of his lance, and yes, like a ghost dancing through abandoned halls, Marianne weaved through the fog all spark and steel and _scared_.

“Stay right there!” Sylvain screamed, pushing through the air, but it repelled him as surely as if it were solid ice. And more, and more, and more beasts kept up their assault.

“I see you!” Sylvain shouted over the din of battle, “I see you, I—" and if Marianne heard him, she didn’t call something back. He forced himself to remain where he was, to fend off each new wave of monsters. At least he knew where she was—because occasionally, he could glimpse flashes of her through the fog.

Fire flickered in the whites of her eyes, gleamed on each swipe and slash of her thin sword. White sparks blinded him as they danced around her skirt.

“Stay back! My—my blood compels—”

The deadliest, sweetest of battle cries. Sylvain took a claw to the shoulder, deep and venomous, and reeled back with a gurgling gasp. Only years of the training he hated to do kept his lance up, his stance steady.

“I…will _not_ die here—"

A rush of fresh air as his unseen Professor ran by with a torch revealed the pale, stark lines of Marianne’s jaw as she battled a too-close, too-distant creature too-many-times her size. Sylvain stabbed his growling foe again, sloppier this time, and felt more than saw Marianne’s healing spell shot his way.

“Sylvain, please!”

She knew where he was in the fog, too.

“Heh,” Sylvain choked out as his own monster fell. “Sounds like a princess in need of a rescue.” He kicked the thing away, hefted the Lance of Ruin, and charged back into the fray accompanied by the sounds of battle and a wild, frightened laugh he didn’t mean.

Howling beasts couldn’t compare. The cacophony of once-shining steel on cursed scales harmonized with the intermittent screeching of Heroes Relics finding their favorite marks. Marianne’s own battle cries were becoming fainter now, either from distance or from her own fatigue or from—

Sylvain didn’t _know_.

There was no grin on his face now. Creatures didn't deserve false charm, something he knew all too well. But he smiled anyway, a feral baring of teeth each second before a gore-caked beast crumpled to the decaying leaves sinking into the forest floor. Each body to fall sent fear clawing its way into his heart, fear one would twist into a sweetly-smiling woman in blue, or worse, that he'd never know, they'd never _find_ her—

Something bellowed, new and horrible, a roar of death so full of gratitude it sent chills shuddering through Sylvain's blood. 

While he sat, frozen on his exhausted horse, the sounds of a woman sobbing echoed through the forest fog.

 _Marianne_.

Sylvain jumped off his horse and hit the bloody leaves running before he had time to feel relieved she was alive enough to cry.

To blush.

To laugh.

To frown.

To look at his expressions with honesty in her own, to mirror back the emotions she’d learned to share while he’d buried his own even deeper.

To look at him while he told her—

"Marianne!" Silence from the carcass-strewn woods. Silent save for those distant—closer now, he doubled back—sobs. "Marianne, where _are_ —"

Sylvain was the first to find her, on her knees and shedding tears above mangled human bones, crumbling to nothing while he watched. Ancient and peaceful as a whispered secret.

"Oh, good. Sylvain." Marianne lifted her eyes from the ground and gazed upon him like he was the best the world could offer. Her awful, relieved smile beamed at him behind streams of glittering tears. "I'm so...so glad you're well. You look…"

It had taken Sylvain twenty-four years to learn how to smile just right, just like _this_ , to make people think _that_. It would surely take another twenty-four years to smile just right and mean it.

Five years had been all Marianne took to muster up convincing ones of her own.

But this envious, awed thought barely occurred to him. Because Marianne was alive enough to smile.

Safe enough to smile.

Resplendent and victorious and _glad he was well_ and glorious and powerful enough to smile.

Sylvain dropped to his knees, too, joining her in the cold soil. He cupped her face in his filthy gauntlets, but Marianne leaned into it like she was expecting him to.

"Looks can be deceiving," he whispered through a hoarse, un-charming voice. Marianne closed her eyes. Her fluttering eyelashes kissed his dust-streaked cheeks like butterflies hovering above a battlefield. "Trust me. You look way better than me. The prettiest, fairest maiden who ever rescued herself."

This close, Sylvain could feel her giggle shiver up his spine. She clutched at his shoulders, bringing him nearer, nearer even as their friends' panicked footsteps stomped towards them. "I... must have been practicing."

The laugh that shook out of him terrified him. "Maybe I should practice more, too, huh?"

Closer and closer were their touches and desire.

Farther and farther was their desire for death.

Maybe one day he could smile at his fading demons the same way she did at hers. Maybe one day he could mean it. But for now…

When Sylvain kissed her, he meant it as much as Marianne meant the smile he could taste on her lips.


End file.
